Dating Tips, 1120 York Avenue, New York, NY (2026)

07/15/2026

Celia’s breath hitched, the metallic tang of fear sharp in her throat as the weight of the city pressed down. Every instinct screamed to run, to disappear back into the anonymity of the New York night, but the small, broken figure in the alley held her rooted.

His skin was cold, an unnatural gray against the harsh glare of a flickering streetlamp. A child, no older than seven, sprawled in a filthy puddle, his expensive blazer ruined. Blood matted his dark hair, a silent testament to a violence that had no place in the world Celia knew.

—Hey, sweetie. Wake up.

Her voice was a raw whisper, barely audible over the drumming rain. He groaned, a sound that tore at something deep inside her, something she thought had long been calloused over. His eyes, wide with a terror that mirrored her own, flickered open.

—No police.

His small hand, surprisingly strong, gripped her wrist. He pushed a sleek, impossibly expensive phone into her palm, a stark contrast to the cheap, battered device she kept for emergencies.

—Call Papa. Only Papa.

The word ‘Papa’ hung in the air, heavy with a different kind of dread. Celia stared at the screen. One contact. Papa. A tremor ran through her hand as she pressed the call button, the cold metal against her ear.

The line rang once. Then, a voice. Not frantic, not worried. Deep, calm, and utterly chilling. A voice that pulled her back across years, across a lifetime she had painstakingly built to forget.

—Speak.

It was him. Vincent. The name tasted like ash in her mouth, a ghost from a past she had buried alive. Her carefully constructed world, her sanctuary of logic and science, was crumbling around her, pulled apart by a child’s plea and a man’s cold command.

He had been the reason she built walls around her heart, brick by painstaking brick. Now, one phone call had shattered them all, and the danger she had fled was knocking at her door, dripping with rain and blood.

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07/15/2026

He wasn't supposed to be home, and the hand that clamped over his mouth in the dark was utterly unexpected.

Vincent Torino had walked through that door a thousand times, a man forged in steel and silence, the unshakeable titan of a city he ruled. But this night, his own kingdom became his most dangerous trap.

Cold fingers pressed hard against his lips, silencing the instinctive growl in his throat. It was Elena, the maid, her eyes wide with a terror that clawed at something deep within him. He watched the tremor in her hands, a stark contrast to his own still heart. Her whisper, an urgent current against his ear, carried the weight of a death sentence.

—Don’t make a sound.

She yanked him, hard, into the suffocating velvet darkness of his walk-in closet, pinning him against the expensive suits that smelled of power and old leather. Through the sliver of the door, the bedroom lights flicked on, cutting through the shadows like blades.

Footsteps. Not hers. Not his wife’s. Strangers.

—They think you’re still out of town.

Her voice was a mere breath, a fragile shield against the danger that now filled his most private space. He could feel her breath on his cheek, the rapid flutter of her pulse against his chest.

—If they hear you, you won’t make it out of this room.

Metal clicked. A drawer slid open. The chilling sound echoed the sudden drop in his gut. This wasn't a street brawl. This was an invasion, a violation of the sanctum he believed impenetrable. And Elena, the quiet woman who moved like a ghost through his marble halls, was now his only barrier.

Then the voice came. Cold. Familiar. A voice that had once called him 'Uncle,' a voice he had molded, trusted, loved.

—Check every room again. He should have been here by now.

Marcus. His own nephew. The betrayal ripped through him, sharper than any knife. His blood ran to ice, a betrayal so profound it threatened to shatter the very foundation of his life.

Elena’s grip tightened, her eyes reflecting his shock, then morphing into something else entirely. Knowledge. A deep, unsettling understanding that this wasn't new to her.

Then he saw it. The glint of steel, barely visible beneath her simple black dress. A small pistol, nestled against her hip. The maid. Armed.

—He keeps the real secrets somewhere else. We need him alive long enough to tell us where.

Marcus’s laugh, devoid of all warmth, twisted the knife deeper. Elena leaned in again, her whisper a lifeline through the suffocating fear.

—There’s something else you need to know. This isn’t just about money or territory.

What other secrets did his nephew covet? And what hidden truth did Elena carry, the silent woman who just saved his life?

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07/15/2026

Everyone feared her, until a quiet defiance shattered the silence. Celeste Thorne ran the Kingston Estate like a queen rules a hostile kingdom, her whispers more potent than shouts, her judgments final. For two years, not a single soul dared to cross her, not an employee breathed without her permission. Then, Laura Jensen arrived.

Laura carried a quiet dignity, a steel beneath her unassuming demeanor. She had seen fear before, lived with it in the very air. This house, despite its grandeur, was steeped in it.

Her first hours were a dance of observation, mapping not just the rooms, but the currents of anxiety that flowed through them. The staff moved like shadows, their eyes downcast, their voices hushed.

Then came the crash. The sound of shattered porcelain, a girl's whispered apologies, and Celeste's voice, not loud, but cutting. It was a precise, calculated cruelty, designed to strip away self-worth, piece by agonizing piece.

Laura saw the young girl, barely seventeen, on her knees, hands shaking as she fumbled with broken shards. And she saw the entire staff, frozen, eyes fixed on the floor, pretending not to witness the slow destruction of a child.

Something inside Laura, something buried deep under years of carefully constructed walls, snapped.

She walked forward. Not rushing, not hesitating. Just a steady, unyielding presence.

She knelt beside the girl, her hands moving with quiet competence, gathering the sharp fragments.

—It was an accident,

Laura said. Her voice was clear, not loud. It cut through the suffocating silence with a truth nobody else dared utter.

—Accidents happen. Let’s get this cleaned up.

The air thickened. Celeste’s voice, that razor-sharp instrument, paused.

—Excuse me,

Celeste said, her tone deceptively calm.

—I don’t believe I was finished.

—The floor is a hazard,

Laura replied, her gaze steady, locked on the task at hand. She didn’t look away. She didn’t back down.

—Someone could cut themselves.

That simple sentence. A statement of fact. A direct challenge to the unspoken rules of fear that governed this house. And Garrett Kingston, the man who commanded an empire, who inspired terror in the hearts of hardened criminals, stood in the doorway. He watched. And he said nothing. His silence, however, was not one of indifference.

It was the silence of a man weighing consequences.

Of a man seeing a ghost he never thought he’d encounter again.

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07/14/2026

The tremor started in her fingers, then seized her entire hand. That’s how it always began, a cold dread blossoming into a frantic pulse, a silent warning only she could hear.

He was there.

Merritt Campbell, seated at the bar, swirling his amber liquid as if he owned the very air in The Gilded Spoon. He owned her, certainly, in every way that mattered. Her phone. Her bank. Her movements. Her breath.

He wasn't supposed to be in Boston's North End tonight. His inspection schedule was across town, a detail he’d recited with meticulous cruelty that morning. But there he was, his gaze drilling into her, a silent promise of retribution for an offense she hadn’t even committed yet.

Her feet moved, a muscle memory of subservience, but her mind screamed.

The tray tilted.

Twelve ounces of scalding espresso cascaded. Not onto the marble floor, a predictable mercy. Instead, it struck the chest of the man standing beside table nine, a dark, precise stain blossoming across his pristine white shirt.

The restaurant didn't just fall silent. It died.

Every eye, every breath, every whispered thought converged on Tova Evans. She felt the heat on her own fingers, a searing pain, but it was nothing compared to the ice in her veins.

Two men at the stranger's table shifted, their hands disappearing inside tailored jackets. The hostess, a usually unflappable woman, vanished into the kitchen. But the man in the ruined suit remained motionless.

His gaze, when it found hers, was not filled with the expected rage. It was something far older, far more dangerous.

It was recognition.

She dropped to her knees, a reflex learned over years. Her mouth poured out apologies, meaningless words against the backdrop of her life’s unraveling.

“I’m so sorry. Please. I’ll pay for the cleaning. I’m so sorry, sir.”

Her sleeve rode up as she pressed a flimsy napkin to his chest. There, stark against her pale skin, were the bruises. Layered. Fingerprint-shaped. A testament to truths she desperately tried to conceal.

He didn't just see the coffee. He saw the marks. He saw the way she braced for a blow that hadn’t come. He saw the flicker of something broken in her eyes.

Then his hand moved. Slow. Deliberate. Not a threat, but a gesture she couldn't comprehend. A single finger beneath her chin.

“Stand up.” The voice was a low current, barely audible, yet it cut through the room’s paralyzing silence.

Her legs shook. But she stood.

He offered her a crisp linen handkerchief, not for his shirt, but for the raw burns blossoming on her fingers. She hadn’t even noticed them. Too busy apologizing for her own existence.

Alaric Thorne. The name was whispered, feared, a ghost in Boston’s underbelly. He moved through the city like a shadow, commanding respect through an unnerving patience. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

His eyes drifted past her, toward the bar. To Merritt. The man Tova spent every waking moment trying to appease, trying to survive.

Alaric saw the possessive gleam in Merritt’s eyes. He watched Tova navigate the floor, her shoulders drawn, her steps precise. The walk of a woman who knew the exact placement of every land mine in her life.

He knew that walk. His sister, Lena, had walked it for three years.

They found Lena’s body in the Charles River one cold Sunday morning. Her husband never served a single day.

Later that night, the kitchen hallway swallowed Tova whole. Merritt Campbell was a predator in a tailored suit, his grip on her wrist bone-crushing.

“Who is he, Tova? You think you can flirt your way out of this? You’re nothing without me. Nothing.”

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07/14/2026

The elegant crystal sconce shattered, its fragments scattering across the mahogany paneling like fallen stars, as the city's most feared man roared. Every gasp in the exclusive dining room died in throats.

He had her by the collar, a tremor running through his knuckles that spoke of a grief far too raw for display. His gaze, usually cold and calculating, was pinned on the heavy silver chain resting against her collarbone.

— That necklace. He rasped, his voice tearing at the opulent silence.

— It belonged to my dead wife.

Lydia felt the expensive fabric tighten around her throat, cutting off air, yet a strange calm settled within her. The primal fury in his eyes, the metallic tang of his expensive cologne, the glint of the crushed black diamonds – it was all a blur.

Two years. Two years since Isabella Romano, the beautiful and vivacious wife of Vincent Romano, the undisputed head of the Romano syndicate, had been found in a fiery wreck. Two years since the sapphire and black diamond pendant, a piece unique in the world, had vanished.

And now, it hung from the neck of a terrified waitress.

Her mind raced, not with fear, but with the weight of a promise, a secret entrusted to her in the most desperate of circumstances. She knew the truth. A truth that Vincent Romano had unknowingly lived beside, nurtured, and allowed to fester in the very heart of his empire.

The underboss, Silas, moved to intervene, his voice a low warning about prying eyes, about discretion. But Vincent was past reason. He was a man drowning in a sudden, brutal resurgence of pain, a man who saw only desecration.

— Did you grave-rob my wife? He demanded, shaking her slightly.

— Did you pull this off her body?

Lydia’s hands instinctively went to his wrist, not in defiance, but to anchor herself against the violent current of his sorrow. She met his gaze, unflinching, her own eyes, though tired, holding a quiet fire.

She did not cry. She did not plead.

Her voice, raspy but astonishingly steady, cut through the tension.

— I didn’t steal it.

Vincent’s grip tightened, his face contorting into a snarl.

— Liar. It went missing the night she died in that car crash.

And then, Lydia took a breath. Her eyes flickered, just for a moment, past Vincent’s shoulder, past the towering enforcer, Bruno, to the slick, immaculately dressed figure of Silas, who had stepped into his late wife’s shoes with unnerving ease.

Her next words weren’t a whisper. They were a hammer blow, shattering not just the silence of the room, but the foundations of Vincent’s entire world.

— She didn’t die in a car crash, Mr. Romano.

The world stopped spinning. The air left the room. Vincent’s grip loosened, his eyes wide with a dawning horror that froze everyone present.

— And she told me that if I ever needed your protection from the men who really killed her, I should wear it to the Obsidian Room on October 14.

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07/14/2026

The memory still seared, a phantom pain in her left arm.

Blood dripped from her fingertips, a grotesque crimson bloom across the cracked screen of her cheap phone. Her arm hung at an angle that screamed wrongness.

Through the icy Chicago rain, through the suffocating curtain of agony, she pressed the only number she had saved. The one she’d sworn she’d never use.

A single word, sharp and dangerous, cut through the night:

— Speak.

She choked on a wet sob, the sound raw and desperate.

— Can you pick me up?

Hours earlier, the neon sign of O’Rourke’s Diner buzzed with a relentless, flickering hum. It cast a sickly, artificial glow over the wet pavement, bleeding into the gritty reality of the South Side.

Inside, the air hung heavy. A stagnant cocktail of stale grease, burned coffee, and damp wool.

Chloe Bennett moved through it, a ghost in her own life. Her right hand wiped a rag in methodical circles across the laminate of booth number 4.

Her left arm stayed tucked close to her ribs. It ached with a dull, persistent throb from where Derek Lawson had shoved her against a doorframe two nights before.

She kept her head down, a curtain of dull blonde hair shielding the fading yellow-purple bruise along her jawline. At twenty-four, Chloe felt forty. Every day was a survival loop.

Serve terrible coffee, collect meager tips, return to a cramped apartment. Walk carefully around a man who used her as his emotional and physical punching bag.

The diner bell jingled then, a sharp, unwelcome sound that cut through the low murmur of the late-night crowd.

Chloe didn’t need to look up. She knew.

The temperature in the room always seemed to drop a few degrees the moment he walked in.

Silas Mercer slid into booth number 9. The corner seat, always facing the door. He was made of sharp lines and expensive shadows.

Tonight, a charcoal bespoke suit beneath a dark wool overcoat. Rain still clung to his broad shoulders, glistening like tiny, dangerous pearls.

He didn’t belong in O’Rourke’s. He looked like the kind of man who owned the city. Or at least its darkest, most powerful corners.

Chloe grabbed a fresh pot of black coffee and a heavy ceramic mug. She smoothed her apron, a habitual gesture, and walked over.

— Evening, Mr. Mercer,

She said softly, keeping her voice steady, an actress playing a part.

Silas didn’t look at the laminated menu. His dark, discerning eyes bypassed the coffee pot entirely. They fixed directly on her face.

He was terrifyingly still. An aura of lethal calm radiating from him.

— Chloe,

His voice was a low, gravelly baritone. It seemed to vibrate in her chest, a dangerous hum.

She poured his coffee carefully, precisely, making sure not to spill a drop.

As she reached across the table, her sleeve hitched up by an inch.

It exposed a fresh set of dark, finger-shaped bruises. They wrapped around her pale wrist, stark against her skin.

Silas’s hand moved at once. Swift, silent.

He didn’t touch her. His palm hovered a fraction of an inch above her wrist, a silent question.

His body had gone rigid. The air between them crackled, taut with unspoken understanding.

— Did you fall again, Chloe?

The question was deceptively quiet. But the threat beneath it was unmistakable. A predatory purr.

Chloe swallowed hard. She pulled her arm back quickly, tugged her sleeve down with desperate speed.

— Clumsy week,

She lied, forcing a strained, brittle smile.

— Cherry pie tonight?

Silas studied her for a long, suffocating moment. He knew she was lying. He always knew.

— Just the coffee.

When Silas left an hour later, he didn’t say goodbye. He simply stood, buttoned his tailored coat, and walked out into the downpour.

When Chloe went to clear his table, she found a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill tucked under his saucer.

Beneath it lay a thick, matte black business card. It had no name, no company logo. Only a single embossed phone number.

On the back, three words had been written in sharp, elegant black ink:

When you’re ready.

Chloe stared at the card, her heart hammering against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.

She slipped it into the deep pocket of her apron, a secret burden. Her only hope.

By two a.m., the diner was locked. Chloe stepped out the back door into the narrow, trash-strewn alley.

Rain came down in icy sheets. It soaked through her thin jacket almost instantly.

She shivered, her body trembling not just from cold, and fumbled in her purse for her keys.

— Who the hell was he?

Chloe gasped. The keys clattered to the wet asphalt.

Derek stepped out from behind the rusted industrial dumpster. He was drenched, his clothes plastered to his wiry frame.

The stench of cheap whiskey and stale smoke rolled off him in waves. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, dilated with a dangerous rage.

— Derek,

She breathed, her voice trembling, dissolving in the rain.

— What are you doing here?

— You said you were staying at Jimmy’s tonight.

— I asked you a question, you lying bitch,

Derek snarled. He closed the distance between them in two long strides, a predator cornering its prey.

— Who was the guy in the suit? You’ve been serving him all month. Think I haven’t been watching?

— He’s just a customer,

Chloe pleaded, backing up until her shoulder blades struck the cold, wet brick of the diner’s exterior. The wall offered no escape.

— I swear, Derek, he just drinks coffee. Please, let’s just go home.

— Home?

Derek laughed. The sound was harsh, jagged, grating.

— To the apartment my money pays for? While you’re out here giving eyes to some rich prick?

— I pay the rent, Derek. You haven’t worked in six months.

It was the wrong thing to say. The truth always was.

Derek lunged. His heavy hands clamped down on her shoulders. He slammed her violently against the brick wall. The impact drove the breath from her lungs in a sharp gasp.

— You think you’re better than me?

He spat, his saliva hitting her cheek, hot and disgusting.

— You think some suit is going to save you from your pathetic life?

— Stop it. Let me go.

Chloe screamed, a raw sound of terror. She thrashed against his grip. Panic clawed at her throat, a desperate, suffocating hand.

She shoved both hands against his chest. It caught him off guard, just enough to break his hold. She turned to run toward the street, toward freedom.

She didn’t make it two steps.

Derek grabbed her left arm. His fingers dug like iron claws into her bicep, piercing her flesh.

With a roar of drunken rage, he yanked her backward. The momentum spun her around, a sickening dance.

But Derek didn’t let go. He planted his boots, twisted her arm behind her waist, and shoved her forward at the same time, putting his full weight into the attack.

The sound was sickening. A loud, wet crack that echoed off the brick walls of the alley. It tore through the downpour, through her very soul.

A sharp, blinding white agony exploded through her forearm. It wasn’t only pain.

It was a total sensory overload. It erased the world around her, leaving only the inferno.

Chloe’s knees buckled instantly. She collapsed onto the wet asphalt, a raw, primal scream tearing from her throat. A scream for help. A scream for an end.

Derek stumbled back. He was suddenly hyperventilating, his drunken fury vanishing, replaced by immediate, cowardly panic.

He stared at her awkwardly bent arm. Then at his own hands, as if they were alien.

— I didn’t mean to do that,

He stammered, backing away, his voice weak and pathetic.

— You shouldn’t have run, Chloe. You made me do it.

He turned and vanished into the rain-swept darkness.

Chloe lay there, shivering, broken, the rain washing away her tears, mingling with the blood. Her phone, still clutched in her right hand, was her only lifeline. She pressed the call button again. Her heart pounded, a drum against her ribs. She had nowhere else to go. No one else to call.

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07/14/2026

I took a bullet for a man I didn't know. The decision wasn’t conscious, more like a desperate reflex, an instinct kicking in when I saw that crimson pinpoint on his chest.

One moment, I was a waitress named Elena Moretti, drowning in medical debt, invisible in the opulent gleam of 'The Obsidian Room'. My biggest worry was making rent.

The next, the world exploded into shattered crystal and the sickening warmth of my own blood.

Julian Thorne was a ghost in a tailored suit, a man whose dark eyes held a universe of secrets. He barely touched his whiskey.

He noticed everything.

And then he caught me.

My uniform, pristine moments before, bloomed crimson against his expensive lapel.

The pain was a white-hot scream, searing through my shoulder. My legs buckled.

But it wasn’t the wound that truly terrified me.

It was his face.

Not gratitude. Not shock. It was pure, unadulterated horror.

His gaze was fixed, not on me, but on something behind me. His body went rigid, vibrating with a fury so profound it echoed through his expensive suit jacket.

I forced my head to turn, every movement a fresh agony.

Then I saw him.

Victor Sterling. The man I’d served appetizers to an hour earlier. The enforcer who sat three tables away, blending perfectly into the background.

He held a silenced pistol.

It was aimed at the exact spot where Julian’s head had been.

The laser sight, the phantom sniper outside—all a meticulously planned charade. The real killer had been inside all along.

Hidden in plain sight.

Waiting for Julian to be distracted by the external threat, so he'd never see the bullet coming from the one he trusted.

Blood filled my mouth. Darkness pressed at the edges of my vision. But three words clawed their way out.

— He's behind you.

Julian's hand moved, but Victor was already retreating toward the kitchen, that chilling weapon still trained on us both.

Then Victor smiled.

It was a smile colder than death, older than my own life. A smile of long-held vengeance.

— She wasn’t supposed to move.

His voice, precise as a surgeon’s cut, sliced through the stunned silence of the restaurant.

— None of this was supposed to include her.

Then he was gone, swallowed by the kitchen doors, just as Julian's security team stormed the entrance.

The chaos around me blurred.

My mind replayed his words, a haunting echo in the fog of shock and blood loss.

None of this was supposed to include her.

But it did now.

Julian’s hands pressed hard against my wound, barking orders with a chilling efficiency. As he fought to keep me conscious, I understood with a clarity that fractured my very soul.

The woman I was when I walked into work that night no longer existed.

That woman believed in small dreams. Small mercies. That $17 in her bank account was the worst thing.

This woman had just looked into the eyes of a cold, dangerous man. She had stared her own death in the face.

Not from his hand, but from the brutal, hidden world I had just entered by saving his life.

— Stay with me.

It wasn't a request. It was an order.

An order from a man who did not accept refusal.

What kind of darkness had I just stepped into? And what would it cost me to get out?

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07/14/2026

There are moments when a person knows, with absolute certainty, that nothing will ever be the same again.

Mine came at 11:23 on an ordinary Tuesday night.

I opened the door to my apartment and heard laughter coming from my bedroom.

It wasn't innocent laughter.

It was broken, intimate, accompanied by sounds that turned my stomach and seemed to stop my heart inside my chest.

My fingers trembled around my purse.

I stood frozen in the hallway, as though I had forgotten how to walk, breathe, or exist.

The bedroom door was ajar, a narrow line of light escaping through the opening.

I should have left.

I should have turned around and walked away.

Instead, some primal part of me, still clinging to the thread of denial, pushed me forward.

I approached slowly, each step a leaden weight, until my eyes confirmed what my heart already knew.

Liam, my boyfriend of three years, was in my bed.

He was not alone.

The woman beside him had blonde hair I would have recognized anywhere.

It was so much like mine.

She was my sister, Amber.

For one surreal second, my mind refused to process the scene.

Then, with trembling hands, I pulled out my phone, opened the camera, and snapped a photograph.

The click sounded unnaturally loud.

They both looked toward the door.

— What the f**k is this?

Liam scrambled out of bed so quickly he nearly fell, his eyes wide with panic, searching for something to cover himself.

— Luna, this isn’t—I can explain.

Amber, however, was in no hurry.

She sat up slowly, pulling my sheet around herself with a calm that bordered on obscene.

Then she smiled at me, as though we were at breakfast, and she had just made an amusing remark.

— Hey, sis. You’re home early.

Something inside me broke.

It wasn’t my heart; that had already shattered into dust.

It was something deeper, more visceral—the thin boundary separating restraint from savagery.

— You.

The word emerged hoarse, suffocated by the anger rising in my throat.

— Relax.

Amber stood, pulling on my robe as if it belonged to her.

Every movement seemed calculated to inflict maximum pain.

— He came to me. I didn’t steal him. He was tired of you.

She moved closer, and I saw something in her eyes that had probably always been there, though I had refused to recognize it: envy refined into pure hatred.

— You’re bureaucratic, Luna. Boring and predictable. I’m fun.

Tears burned in my eyes, but they weren't from sadness.

They came from absolute rage—the kind that makes you want to break things, to scream until your voice disappears, to set the world on fire.

— Get out.

My voice was low, but carried a violence I hadn't known existed within me.

— Both of you. Get out now.

— Luna, we can talk, Liam stammered, fumbling for his clothes scattered across the floor.

I grabbed the nearest object, a pillow, and hurled it at him.

Then another.

Then the lamp.

— Get out of my house.

They left in a rush.

Liam stumbled, barely pulling on his trousers.

Amber gave me one final triumphant look over her shoulder before the door closed behind them.

Then I collapsed.

I fell to the hallway floor, wrapped my arms around my knees, and cried until there were no tears left, my throat burned, and the first hints of dawn crept through curtains I had forgotten to close.

— I’m going to kill her.

Maya sat across from me the following morning, holding a steaming cup of coffee, her gaze murderous.

She had been my closest friend since college, the only person I still trusted completely.

— Get in line, I said, taking a sip from my own cup. I’m first.

I hadn't slept.

My eyes burned, swollen from crying, but something had shifted during the night.

The sadness had hardened into something sharp and dangerous.

Maya tilted her head.

— How are you so calm?

— Because I cried all night.

For the first time since discovering the betrayal, I smiled.

It was not a happy smile.

It was the kind that precedes decisions that could become either terrible or remarkable.

— Now I want revenge.

Maya leaned forward.

— What kind of revenge?

— I’m going to make him regret it. I’ll make him see what he lost. I’ll appear with someone better—older, richer, more everything.

The plan came too easily, as though I had spent the entire night assembling it.

Perhaps I had.

— You’re going to invent a boyfriend? Maya asked.

— No. I’m going to borrow one from Liam.

I paused, letting the words hang in the air before delivering the rest.

— His father.

The coffee Maya had been drinking sprayed from her mouth.

— What?

— Nico Rossi. I met him once at a family dinner about six months ago. He’s handsome, rich, and most importantly, available. He’s been divorced for five years.

— Luna, he’s Liam’s father.

— Exactly.

The emotion gathering in my chest wasn't only anger. It was excitement.

— Imagine Liam’s face when he sees his father with me.

— This is either insane or brilliant.

— There’s an event tonight. A charity function. One of those tedious events the Rossi family always attends. I’ll show up, accidentally encounter him, and plant the idea.

Maya studied me for a long moment before shaking her head with a reluctant smile.

— And when it doesn’t work?

— I return to Plan B.

— Which is?

— Destroying Amber’s car.

Maya laughed.

— I love you. You know that?

— I know. That’s why you’re going to help me find a dress that makes him forget his own name.

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